Fate

"Take the initiative to shoulder the banner of resistance against the Hunyuan Realm... and you even drag the meaning of life into it." Hearing this, Yaoguang found it amusing, though he showed no sign of amusement on his face. Instead, he asked with intrigued interest, "And what should I do, then?" "You have already done very well," Immortal King Tianming replied, giving Yaoguang an encouraging look. "Thanks to the arrangements made by the Time Dao Ancestor and the Void Dao Ancestor, you bear the traits of an immortal spirit and have attained the position of a director in Creation Group. Next, all you need to do is kill Xuanqing so that you can take over his post as chairman and take control of Creation Group. Then, I will assist you with the Gate of All Mysteries, wielding the power of fate to ignite an all-out war among the Nine Great Groups. When that time comes..." "So I am to do all the most dangerous work and bear every responsibility and obligation, while what have you done?" Yaoguang asked. "Furthermore, if I do all this, what do I stand to gain?" "What do you stand to gain?" Immortal King Tianming frowned slightly. "You have inherited the legacies of both the Time Dao Ancestor and the Void Dao Ancestor. In the future, you are destined to rank among the Three Thousand Dao Ancestors—and as a Dao Ancestor of a Supreme Grand Dao at that. That in itself is your greatest fortune and reward." "Save the empty promises," Yaoguang said, waving a hand dismissively. "The claim that I will rank among the Three Thousand Dao Ancestors in the future is premised on the Ancient Immortal Realm ultimately emerging victorious. If the Ancient Immortal Realm is defeated, I will have nothing left." He looked at Immortal King Tianming. "So let us be practical. You say you will assist me with the Gate of All Mysteries? Rather than waiting on your assistance, why not just hand the Gate of All Mysteries directly over to me? With this treasure in my hands, executing the subsequent plan would go far more smoothly, would it not?" "You want the Gate of All Mysteries?" Immortal King Tianming blurted out without hesitation. "That is impossible!" Immediately realizing that such an attitude risked alienating him, Tianming quickly added, "What I mean is, to wield the Gate of All Mysteries, one must obtain authorization from the great Fate Dao Ancestor... that is, the Gate of Fate, which has completely merged into one with the Ancient Immortal Realm. Without that authorization, the Gate of All Mysteries would not unleash its true wonders in your hands." "Not necessarily. Whether it can unleash its true wonders or not can only be known once I've tried using it." Yaoguang chuckled softly. "You surely didn't think you could sway me into defecting to your Ancient Immortal Realm faction with mere empty words, did you? That would be utterly ridiculous." "It is not about a few words swaying you to our Ancient Immortal Realm's side—it is that you have no choice but to stand with us!" Immortal King Tianming said heavily. "We are natural allies!" "Farewell, then!" Yaoguang turned as if to leave. "Wait! Yaoguang, it seems you still do not understand your own situation. Once your identity is exposed, carrying the legacies of both the Time Dao Ancestor and the Void Dao Ancestor, you will inevitably become prime prey in the eyes of every group. Back when Creation Group had not suffered heavy losses, they could have shielded you from some of the wind and rain. But now, Creation Group's strength has been severely depleted. Without sufficient power, it makes no difference whether you are an immortal spirit or not." Immortal King Tianming glared at Yaoguang and said emphatically, "The boards of directors of the other groups will do everything in their power to treat you as a spy of our Ancient Immortal Realm and bring you to justice! They may well know better than you do that you are falsely accused, yet they will firmly and willfully turn a blind eye, seizing the legacies of the Time Dao Ancestor and the Void Dao Ancestor upon you for themselves!" He then added, "Reporting this to the Lord of Yuanxi would be useless. The Nine Rulers will force the Lord of Yuanxi to change his decision, having you 'sacrificed' so that the legacies and arrangements of the Time Dao Ancestor and the Void Dao Ancestor are laid bare, all to prevent any variable beyond the control of the Nine Rulers from existing." "Report to the Lord of Yuanxi?" Yaoguang stopped in his tracks and looked at Immortal King Tianming. "Why would I report to the Lord of Yuanxi?" Immortal King Tianming froze. "Having cultivated to the level of an Immortal King, do you still fail to understand? In this world, there is no outsider, no external thing that one can rely upon. The only thing any living being can truly depend on is oneself." Seeing that Immortal King Tianming truly had no more useful information to reveal, Yaoguang dropped the pretense of leaving. "Enough. There is no need for further superfluous talk. If you truly wish to cooperate with me, show me your sincerity first." He extended his hand. "Hand over the Gate of All Mysteries." "It is not that I am unwilling to give it to you, but even if I handed over the Gate of All Mysteries, you might not be able to use it," said Immortal King Tianming. "If you do not hand it over, how do you know I cannot use it?" "I have wielded the Gate of All Mysteries for so many years; would I not understand its many profound mysteries?" Immortal King Tianming said, his patience wearing thin. "When cooperating with us is clearly your only option, why must you remain so obstinate?" "It seems you have not the slightest bit of sincerity," Yaoguang said, a look of regret in his eyes. "Since there is no sincerity, then we are not collaborators, nor do we belong to the same faction! And since I do not belong to the Ancient Immortal Realm faction, then I belong to the Hunyuan Realm faction. And since I am of the Hunyuan Realm faction and a director of Creation Group, facing you Immortal Kings of the Ancient Immortal League, there is only one thing I must do..." *Rumble!* The void trembled! An unprecedented surge of the Grand Dao of the Void detonated and violently convulsed at that instant. The ferocious frequency of the vibrations seemed to exceed the carrying capacity of the Grand Dao of the Void itself, causing wide swaths of the void to collapse. And at the moment of that void collapse, Yaoguang's entire being seemed to transform into a world that devoured all things, crashing straight toward Immortal King Tianming. The sensation was as though he were propelling the force of the entire Ancient Immortal Realm's universe, ramming into a tiny creature possessing less than one ten-thousandth of the Ancient Immortal Realm's mass. Great Void Art! Centered on the power of three thousand shares of the Grand Dao of the Void and driven by a 50% void boundary, this was a Great Void Art concentrated to the absolute extreme! "Purge you!" "Yaoguang!" Seeing Yaoguang dare to strike at him, Immortal King Tianming's divine sense erupted in fiery rage. "Must you cut yourself off from our Ancient Immortal Realm before you learn what regret means?! If so, let me beat you to your senses first! Supreme Heavenly Book!" He clenched his hand in empty space, and eighty-one Grand Daos surged anew. Guided by the Grand Dao of Order as their core, they swiftly condensed into a new formidable immortal art! It was as though a heavenly tome had opened, brimming with supreme rules and systems, seeming poised to completely imprison the void power unleashed by Yaoguang. Yet this process lasted for merely a moment. The void power—the very foundation that condensed and manifested this formidable immortal art—seemed to be directly stripped away. Bereft of the manifestation of the Grand Dao of the Void, the formidable immortal art showed every sign of dissipating on the spot. "Mohe!" Immortal King Tianming's divine sense shook. One of the Ancient Immortal League's Immortal Kings currently besieging the two Immortal Kings Alpha and Nizhuan stepped forth from the crowd and manifested the Grand Dao of Chaos. Chaos, as a core Grand Dao, contained everything and confounded everything. Furthermore, the phantom of a top-tier immortal artifact manifested behind Immortal King Tianming, causing the stripped void power to be manifested anew—projected forth through the power of the Grand Dao of Chaos. "Judgment!" Having stabilized this formidable immortal art, Immortal King Tianming slammed his hand down. Countless characters formed of rules upon the Supreme Heavenly Book clashed ceaselessly against the void power stirred by the Great Void Art. Judging by this momentum, it might actually be blocked forcefully by the power of the Supreme Heavenly Book! *A power equivalent to three thousand shares of the Grand Dao of the Void actually cannot crush this immortal art?* A flicker of surprise passed through Yaoguang's eyes. Immortal King Tianming was not the type of expert who excelled in direct, head-on combat; he was naturally far better at scheming and calculation. Yet the Great Void Art unleashed using three thousand shares of the Grand Dao of the Void along with Yaoguang's demonstrated void boundary possessed power that could easily rank in the top twenty among the numerous Immortal Kings across the entire Immortal Realm. Setting aside the amplifying effects of Level 19 authority, breaking into the top ten would not even be an extravagant hope. Yet a frontal clash of this magnitude had failed to gain any significant upper hand against Immortal King Tianming. To possess strength sufficient to rank among the top twenty Immortal Kings... No wonder Immortal King Tianming spoke with such confidence. Unfortunately, the only reason Yaoguang had restricted himself to three thousand shares of the Grand Dao of the Void and a boundary equivalent to having comprehended five thousand shares when engaging Immortal King Tianming was to make his increase in strength appear reasonable, avoiding suspicion from others. But now... Even Immortal King Tianming had stated that Yaoguang had inherited the legacies left by the Void Dao Ancestor and the Time Dao Ancestor. Dao Ancestor legacies... Then displaying a bit of overpowered, rule-breaking strength was completely justified and reasonable. With this thought, the power of over four thousand shares of the Grand Dao of the Void was mobilized by power verging on the level of a Dao Lord. Although he did not truly activate Dao Lord power to manifest absolute control over the Grand Dao of the Void, as the power of four thousand shares gathered under this control second only to a Dao Lord and slammed down as a new Great Void Art, the entire Ancient Immortal Realm seemed to shake. If the previous battle between Immortal Kings Xuanqing, Longxiang, and the others had pulverized their surroundings into dust and turned them into chaos, then the Great Void Art Yaoguang condensed now reached the macrocosmic level of the Ancient Immortal Realm itself. The one striking no longer seemed to be an Immortal King within the Ancient Immortal Realm, but the very universe of the Ancient Immortal Realm itself. Enormous amounts of void power were mobilized and siphoned away, destabilizing the structural integrity of the Ancient Immortal Realm to the point of giving rise to an apocalyptic sensation of impending world destruction, as if the entire realm were truly collapsing. Before this Great Void Art even landed, the void across a radius of millions of li developed visible fissures from the void power being siphoned away. Boundless chaotic nothingness poured forth from those fissures, washing away the traces of "existence" of the Three Thousand Grand Daos, causing the operation of the Three Thousand Grand Daos to grind to a momentary halt. "This power..." Immortal King Tianming immediately sensed the sheer terror of this strike. The reason the operation of the Three Thousand Grand Daos had stalled was that they sensed a threat sufficient to damage—or even destroy—the Ancient Immortal Realm itself. This threat came from the chaotic nothingness, and from the myriad tears in the void caused by Yaoguang's massive siphoning of void power. To neutralize this threat, the Ancient Immortal Realm spontaneously mobilized the Three Thousand Grand Daos to repair the shattered fissures. And among the Three Thousand Grand Daos mobilized this time... Aside from the two thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine Grand Daos—including the Grand Dao of the Void and the Grand Dao of Time—it also included the power of fate. The power of fate, acclaimed as the head of the Three Thousand Grand Daos, which coordinated the other two thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine Grand Daos within the Ancient Immortal Realm. From that moment on, fate's orchestration and dominion... Suffered a deviation!